hope

In one way or another we are all waiting for something right now. We go to work and the grocery store, have casual conversations about summer plans and the unseasonable weather. But on the inside, we sit alone in our waiting rooms, always with an eye toward that door that keeps not opening.

It will never make a headline, but with so many of us here it feels important to talk about.

I’ll attempt to put words on the movement that happens within us while we’re busy doing other things. I can’t help it. I’m compelled. So here we go again.

The Kind of Waiting We Talk About

Each morning, we wake to the sound of waves hitting the beach. The kids won’t wake up for hours so we grab coffee and fold up chairs we brought from home, walk down to the shore and face east.

The waiting here is easy. We know that sun will rise.

What a luxury to wait for something to happen that you know will happen. We learned this in kindergarten – to wait in line, wait your turn, wait for Christmas – all those things had the end built in. We understood the exchange. We will have patience, and then we will get our reward in time.

There is growth in this kind of waiting, to be sure. It takes maturity that we aren’t born with to learn to wait for results, outcomes, and the passing of time.

So we make paper chains to count down the days, watch the dough rise through the oven door, set our clocks to wake for when morning finally comes.

This waiting is a function of time and time will always pass.

Still, just because you know the wait will come to an end doesn’t make it easy.

The Kind of Waiting That Sneaks Up On You

Sometimes you don’t realize you’re waiting until you’re almost through it. I would say this is a good thing, except the unawareness of the waiting can often manifest itself in strange ways: irritability, restlessness, or indecision to name a few.

Ask me how I know.

My entire year of 39 I was waiting to turn 40. I didn’t realize it until just before my birthday, but the anxiety, the questions, the second-guessing, the strange new fears — once my birthday passed all of that went with it.

Oh, I realized. I have been holding my breath.

The Kind of Waiting We Don’t Talk About

But what about waiting for results when results aren’t guaranteed?

This is the kind that can break your heart because it doesn’t come with arrows or endpoints.

This kind of waiting is a perpetual bachelor. He shows up in your life a mysterious stranger, giving hints and hopes about the future but never making any promises.

This may or may not be. You’ll just have to wait and see.

The kind of waiting that’s easy to talk about is the kind we can measure in time. And while it’s true we can’t control time or make it tick by faster, at least it has a track record. It will pass.

Some waiting leads only to more waiting. Or worse, builds up then fizzles out.

And this doesn’t mean we aren’t moving. It does mean we may be waiting for something and moving toward something that may never come to be, even while we hope.

On the one hand, this feels like terrible news.

But there is another hand.

The Kind of Wait That Needs to Stop

Once the sun comes up, we make our way back to the beach house, refill our mugs, settle in on the porch and face the waves again, this time from a distance.

The pine trees offer shade from the sun, rising higher in the sky as we read. A squirrel scurries up the skinny trunk in front of us, takes aim at a branch on a nearby tree, flings himself through the air, nearly missing. He lands without falling but not without fanfare.

But the next morning, we see another squirrel do this same routine: climb the skinny trunk, aim toward the branch, fly, nearly miss, catch and continue on with his climb.

It occurs to me that this is either the same squirrel or it’s what they all do in that one spot.

What looks to me like a near miss is actually routine. What seems to be a miscalculation is a regular part of the plan.

Progress looked sloppy and not well-thought out. But it didn’t have to be because that squirrel made that jump every single day.

Maybe that sloppy jump was not a poor decision. Maybe it was the only way across.

For the past two years I’ve been waiting, the kind where you don’t have any guarantees that what you’re waiting for will actually happen.

As much as I could, I cleared the decks. Said no to a lot. Gave myself space to listen for good timing and just rights. I took some deep breaths. I’ve tried to do only the essential.

I entered into this waiting season willingly, anticipating long walks, silent space, listening, and deepening. The deepening has happened to be sure, but not in the ways I expected.

Though I wanted it, this liminal space did not come to me gently. I scheduled the stillness and proceeded to fidget and twitch my way through it. I invited the silence and then interrogated her when she showed up on my doorstep. Why are you here? Why aren’t you saying anything?!

While I’ve cut out a lot of activity, I’m discovering the words of Leighton Ford to be true, that the secret to living in a busy world “is not at the circumference (merely reducing our activities) but at the center (refocusing our heart).”

The particular season of waiting I have been in is coming to a close, I can feel it. In the past few months, I’ve made decisions, turned away from closed doors, taken steps and discerned plans. Here in the middle of a quiet, mostly still summer month, I anticipate the months to come and see they will be different.

There will be new challenges, both creatively and personally.

There will be new partnerships which is not something I enter into naturally or without fear, but am excited for all the same.

Once again, results are not guaranteed.

I want my leaps to be thoughtful, measured, well-planned. Sometimes that works out, but if I wait for that as the only way to move, I may be waiting past my queue.

Sometimes when I think I’m waiting on God, it turns out he’s waiting on me.

Waiting as a Way of Life

As we move through our seasons of waiting, is it possible to learn to wait well?

We traveled to Memphis to spend some time with her last week and for a few minutes on the fourth of July, John asked her a handful of questions and the conversation gently led back to the Lord. It always does with Budder.

We didn’t ask her about waiting, didn’t lead the question. But evidently it’s something she thinks about a lot on her own. As we talked, she said this:

“Everyday I get such a pleasure and a strengthening from a little verse that says, His steps are with you. What I’m trying to make myself do is remember that little verse that says, Wait on the Lord.”

Listen, I’m talking hundreds of messages from you, responding to her words. I’ve since wondered about why it resonated with so many of us.

She’s adorable, quick-witted and remarkably present for 104. She drives, lives by herself, goes to Wal-Mart, teaches 1st graders Sunday school. She is kind of a miracle. Or a unicorn. Or both.

Her husband died of a stroke when he was only 54, leaving her to parent their four boys alone. Budder never remarried, living on her own for the next 55 years. The sorrow she has she carries in secret and if she ever held grudges, she released them decades ago.

I look at her life, a woman who has buried both a husband and a son, lived through two World Wars, seen the election of 18 presidents with all of their triumphs and scandals.

She has lived long and she has lived faithful.

I think that’s what you saw in her. Yes, it’s her personality, her southern accent, and her humor. But mostly, it’s her faith.

We are a generation of tired people, longing to see evidence that what we wait for in secret is worth it.

We believe and want help in our unbelief.

Our souls make quiet work of always scanning for truth. When we find it, the tears spill over and take us by surprise.

What All Waiting Has in Common

Down the road from Budder’s is a house that over 20 million people have visited since it opened to the public: Graceland, the Memphis home of Elvis Presley.

I could tell you about the mirrored staircase, the peacock stained glass in the living room, the oddly delightful jungle room, the spotless 1970s kitchen, but with over 20 million people visiting this house, chances are you’ve seen all that yourself or at least heard about it.

What struck me while walking through the house where Elvis lived is, how in spite of all his achievements, awards, money, accolades, and success, he still died in his upstairs bathroom: young, sick, exhausted, and divorced.

Budder was born twenty-two years before Elvis and has lived forty years passed his death and keeps on going. His whole life fits inside hers, two and a half times.

But when you put aside the legend and pull back the tasseled curtain of the American dream, you’ll see a man who wanted what we all want: to be loved, to be secure, and to belong.

No one is immune. Just some of us have more money, talent, and creative ways of getting what we most deeply long for.

A few miles away from Graceland, Budder sits alone in her house, praying for her family members each night by name. Hers is a life of waiting. For what, I don’t presume to know. But I do know she thinks about it. I also know she brings her waiting into the presence of the Lord.

“And then the one this morning, said the Lord shall take you step by step and supply all your needs. That’s the first thing I do when I wake up. I turn the little light on and read that verse.”

As she spoke, she looked off into the distance. Then she drew one of her hands up toward her face and smiled. Like a little girl. A 104 year old girl.

To live is to wait. We wait for things we know will happen, things we hope will come to be. We wait until the right time and sometimes we don’t realize we’re waiting at all.

Scripture doesn’t say so much about waiting for particular things, outcomes, or circumstances. Instead, we get this:

“The steps of a man are established by the Lord,And He delights in his way.24 When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong,Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.25 I have been young and now I am old,Yet I have not seen the righteous forsakenOr his descendants begging bread.26 All day long he is gracious and lends,And his descendants are a blessing.”

Psalm 37:23- 26

And also this:

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:14

Of course our Father would shift our eyes from a plan we hope for to a Person we can hope in.

Isn’t that what he always does?

Here’s what I know: Whatever I put at the center of the wait is what carries all the power. I can’t say that I fully understand what it means to wait upon the Lord but if scripture invites me into it, well then there must be hope in that.

So here’s to you who wait for the measureable things – the birth, the graduation, the answer, the arrival of a friend. Take heart, it will not be like this forever.

To you who continue to wait for things unmeasured, for the healing you’re not sure will come or the love you’re not sure you’ll find. May you find comfort in the presence of our friend Jesus even though you may not have the answers you are looking for.

Do you feel disoriented, discouraged, or unsure but don’t know why? Take a moment to consider if you might be waiting for something you’ve yet to acknowledge. Perhaps just the admission will bring the slightest lift.

Maybe like me you have welcomed a season of listening, of quiet deepening and slow moving. But in some area or another, you wonder if it might be time to move. May you have the courage to take the next right step, no matter how sloppy or unsure.

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Ten years ago this month, I was in the midst of the most anxiety-ridden time of my life. This isn’t something I talk about a lot, but I come from a long line of worriers – gentle, hilarious, kind, gracious worriers.

When I was younger, I worried about school starting back.

I worried about tornados.

I worried about robbers and divorce and what if our car rolled out of the driveway while we were sleeping?

We were made by the hands of a Maker to be brave, to take heart and have courage. But we get good at the things we practice, and instead of scales of courage, I played dark melodies of fear.

As I got older the worries changed to match a different stage of life, but they were always crouching in the shadows, waiting to emerge when my guard was down.

My most anxious year was when the twins were three and Luke was still a baby. It was February 2007, which I remember because I was preparing to be in a friends’ wedding that would be at the beginning of March.

It was flu season and it seemed like everywhere I turned, someone was getting sick. But I had a wedding shower to co-host and a gift to buy. While browsing the housewares section of Belk, my phone rang. It was John calling to tell me that the bride was sick but they were going ahead with the shower.

Looking back on that day now, it all seems small and almost silly. Of course they would go ahead with the shower!

But in all seriousness, I almost had a panic attack in the housewares section of Belk because I knew I would have to go to that shower no matter what. And the thought of willingly being in the same room with someone who was actively sick sent me into a tailspin of anxiety.

I’ve only had two panic attacks in my life that I know of for sure: one when I was pregnant with the twins and one shortly after our son was born and I had three babies in diapers and cribs.

But these moments in Belk came close to being the third.

The reason why this was so upsetting to me is because a lot of my anxiety during that time was tied to my fear that my kids would get sick or I would get sick and somehow it would go on and on forever and ever without relief or escape.

That’s what fear does, I’ve learned. It takes you on what seems like a one-way journey of bad possibilities and hides your eyes from the off-ramps of escape.

I had already been living with a cloud of fear and dread for months, washing my hands constantly, not sleeping well at night, hyper-vigilant about any signs of sickness in my small children.

Still, I went to the wedding shower that night and no one got sick after. (It could be because I washed my hands no less than 479 times, who knows?) But the worry and anxiety continued and I longed for the days when I could go out in public without fear of catching something.

Eventually, the contagious late winter days melted into North Carolina spring and we survived it all.

I started to get involved in our youth ministry at church by hanging out with the high school girls and listening to their conversations, hopes, struggles and fears.

The more I got to know them, the more I felt like I already knew them. On the surface, these girls’ lives looked different from mine did at their age with their Facebook and texting and skinny jeans.

But just beneath the surface I saw something in them that reflected something in me – a drive to perform for acceptance and unbearably high expectations of themselves.

They were smiling on the outside, struggling on the inside. I was drawn to their stories and I felt compelled to engage them in conversation about this try-hard life they were living.

I decided I wanted to talk with them even more about all this so I decided to develop a weekend gathering for them. I didn’t know what I was doing, exactly, but I also knew I couldn’t not do it.

I wanted to bring them to my house for 24 hours, sit on the floor and eat chocolate and laugh and talk about the gospel, the real gospel of freedom and hope, not the one they had settled for.

And so I did. I wrote questions for conversation and journaled about what I wanted the weekend to look like. I made a plan, teamed up with some friends to help me, and we invited the girls in our youth group to join us. And they came.

We did this Good Girl Weekend several times over a couple of years for several different groups of girls. Eventually, I wrote a book proposal for a book with this message because there was so much more I wanted to say to girls like the ones in our youth group living a try-hard life. Years later that proposal became my first book.

Over all this time, the anxiety I had been struggling with began to fade. It wasn’t immediate and it wasn’t cured. But slowly, as I began to listen to what made me come alive and then found ways to offer that to others, the fear of getting sick or my kids getting sick didn’t have the power over me that it once did.

I just didn’t think about it as much any more.

I know a lot of that fear and anxiety was directly related to my stage of life and lack of sleep because I had 3 children 3 and under. I also know I am perhaps more prone to worry and anxiety because of my family history.

Of course there are all kinds of wise, healthy, recommended ways to cope with and ease anxiety including counseling, therapy, medication, diet, exercise, and so many other things that I don’t even know about because I’m not a professional in that area.

But what surprises me as I look back on my own life experience with fear and anxiety is the role that creativity played in easing it.

I have lived a lot of my life afraid. I realize now that yes, I was afraid of getting sick, of something happening to my kids, and of the unknown.

But I also know this: I was afraid of my own potential.

I was afraid of the light within.

I was afraid of desire, gumption, moxie, courage and anything else that might want to move me out of myself and into the world.

It scared me a little bit that I might not have anything to offer.

But what scared me more was that I might have a lot.

And that felt out of control.

Working with those high school girls was the beginning of something for me. It was the first small step of many toward walking in line with my calling, towards doing what I believe I’ve been called and gifted to do, of playing my one note in the symphony of believers.

These are anxiety-ridden days for a lot of us right now. Maybe you’re struggling through a grief, a loss, an unmet longing. Maybe you feel uncertainty and frustration with the government right now. I know there’s anger, injustice, conflict, and a deep desire for change.

Let’s have the courage to listen to the gentle heartbeat of our own lives and ask ourselves some honest questions:

Am I willing to do the next right thing in love?

Am I willing to admit what makes me come alive from the inside out?

Could it be possible that that thing I feel called to do, say, speak, write, teach or advocate for is the thing I was made to do, say, speak, write, teach and/or advocate for?

Maybe something has come to mind for you as you’ve been reading these words. Maybe that idea you have had for days, months, or decades is standing on your shoulder right now, tap, tap, tapping away.

I hope you’ll listen to it.

I hope you’ll turn toward that idea with open hands and a willing heart.

I hope you know you’re not alone.

I hope you’ll remember that God can move any way He wants to in this world, but He chose to make our hearts His home. And that means the way He moves in the world is through people like us.

I hope that makes you think and gives you hope and lights a little fire in your bones.

***

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At the end of the letter I sent out to readers a few weeks ago (you can sign up to get those letters right here), I asked this question: Over the next four weeks, what do you feel like you need more than anything?

No one said they need stocking stuffer ideas for their teen girls.

No one said they need inspiration for their dining room table setting.

Of course, those things are lovely and fun and may even be good.

It struck me, though, that no one said they needed a bigger, better, more efficient, more impressive, more established anything.

When I asked you what you needed during the Advent season more than anything else, the answer was unanimous.

Peace.

Oh, it was packaged differently. Some said they long for connection and clarity in the midst of difficult family relationships.

Others said they craved a quiet space and a slower pace.

Focus.

Rest.

Grace.

In all the answers I received to that question, I saw the threads of longing for peace woven within the words.

Now those four weeks of Advent have turned into two and the pain and beauty of this season of waiting is in full swing.

In the midst of Advent, what do you feel like you need more than anything?

***

When I think of the opposite of peace my mind goes far in the other direction. Because the truth is, the brightest light of peace can morph into dark shadows of tragedy. And it happens in a second.

The thing about tragedy is we don’t get any warnings. It’s disruptive and destructive to peace.

Loss is always filled with sorrow, but we usually reserve “tragic” for something sudden, shocking, and unexpected.

When terrible things happen to us or those we love, we don’t have the benefit of hearing a dissonant musical score to warn us of what’s to come, to signal our hands to cover our eyes, to prepare the delicate soul for impact.

We just drive to the movies like we planned and then we get the phone call. We’ve not picked up on any clues along the way because there weren’t any. There is no rising tension. There is only normal life and then a ringing phone.

That’s the extent of foreshadow. A ringing phone.

Now, a year later, every time you drive by that certain spot where you were when you got that phone call, you’ll remember.

You’ll remember the garland and lights in the shop window in front of you, you’ll remember the look your husband gave you when you put your hand over your mouth, you’ll remember how he turned the car into the parking space next to Jason’s Deli.

But what you won’t remember is what it was like before the phone call. You’ll try to grasp for those normal moments, but now they’re gone.

In the midst of tragedy, what do you feel like you need more than anything?

***

Words from Isaiah keep coming back to me this week, the ones about predator and prey living peacefully together; the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling, and a little child will lead them.

I can’t imagine it, can you?

But the idea of one day, this kind of peace happening in nature gives me hope.

Because right now, the kingdom of earth is rife with suffering and conflict. We see it in Syria and Iraq. We see it on our college campuses and inside the walls of our churches. We see it around our dinner tables and in the quiet places of our own hearts.

Sometimes it comes looking like the shocked face of a tragedy and other times it just looks like low-grade anxiety of a Tuesday. But the disruption of peace always seems to come in one way or another.

And yet, Isaiah 11 says there will come a day when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

While tragedy erupts unwelcome into our lives without warning or invitation, hope for peace leaves hints and signs and evidence along the way.

God gives a hopeful vision for the future before it comes to be.

Abraham was told to leave without knowing where he was going. But God pointed to the stars in the heavens and promised so shall your offspring be.

Moses led the people out of Egypt without sure next steps, only knowing the final one-day destination would be the Promised Land.

Mary was promised a Son without the sure proof of a sonogram, the sound of a heartbeat, or a thick, colorful book of what to expect.

The earth was rife with suffering then as it is now. And yet.

“He did not wait till the world was ready, till men and nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady, and prisoners cried out for release.”

Madeleine L’Engle, First Coming

***

In Luke 17 the Pharisees asked when the Kingdom of God would come and Jesus said it’s already here.

“The kingdom of God is in your midst,” He said. It’s among you, within you.

They missed it because they were looking for the wrong signs.

They were looking for a king to sit on a throne, but God sent a baby to lay in a manger.

They were looking for warrior with a weapon, but God sent a son to a cross.

They were looking for power, but God sent humility.

God sent Peace to live among us and now, He lives within us. Yet we look around us and see evidence of struggle and we say there is no peace to be found.

Maybe we, too, are looking for the wrong signs.

***

While the kingdom of earth struggles and moans, the kingdom of heaven grows even in the darkness. It expands, it moves into the pain of the world not from somewhere out there but from the secret place within us.

Peace came to earth, to live among us and now, He lives within us.

How might He want to be born in us again today?

It’s the curious paradox of humanity, that we long for peace to come even as we believe Peace has come already.

We embrace the Prince of Peace who lives within us even as we look for ways to offer his peace to others.

We wait in the darkness, holding on to the promise, believing in the hopeful vision God gave.

We believe the vision of the promise fulfilled not because it seems possible, but because God is the one who gave it.

***

Most of you answered that question – what do you need more than anything during Advent? – from the perspective of an everyday traveler, moving toward Christmas, and not wanting to miss it.

Some carry long to-do lists and growing expectations.

Some carry painful anniversaries.

Some carry heavy burdens of loss.

Still others carry the joy of firsts – the baby! the marriage! the hope!

As we anticipate Christmas again this year, may we allow whatever we carry to rise up to the surface, whether it be grief, indifference, joy, disappointment, heartbreak, courage, or love.

As we acknowledge the colorful mix of our own humanity, may we offer it all to Jesus, joining one another in preparing Him room.

In the midst of an historic week in our country, I’ve found my gaze drawn away from the news and toward the artists.

At first it was somewhat by accident. Scrolling through Instagram, I came across Christa Wells singing and her voice brought me to tears.

Then I read a quote from a poet, then a lyric from a song. Each time, the tears came.

I couldn’t explain those tears, couldn’t name the precise reason for them. Part of it is sadness over the division that exists in our country and part of it, if I’m honest with you, is this stubborn, silly hope I have for the United States, for her people, and for the future.

I just can’t help it.

I’ve always said tears are tiny messengers sent from the deepest part of who we are, carrying with them a most important message: Here is where your heart beats strong. Here is a hint to your design.

And so this week I’m paying attention to what makes me come alive and turning to face the artists on purpose, to listen to what their voices and words and crafts and melodies have to say.

“What’s becoming clearer and clearer to me is that the most sacred moments, the ones in which I feel God’s presence most profoundly, when I feel the goodness of the world most arrestingly, take place at the table.” Shauna Niequist, Bread and Wine

Whenever people talk about finding God in food and healing around the table, I can’t help but first assume it means fancy food and long dinners and the gift of hospitality.

But when I look at my actual life, at the moments when people and food have mingled in a way that have ministered hope to me, it’s never been fancy yet it’s always been healing.

In the midst of mostly bad news in the world, today I’m reflecting on five times when food was the gospel to me.

I. Before the big event.

I stop by her house on my way to the local venue, notes packed in my bag, nerves high in my heart.

I peck on the window of her back door as is the ritual but by the time she sees me, I’m already inside. I’m nervous and grateful for the priveldge of speaking to thousands of women in a few hours.

Also I look forward to it being over.

She welcomes me in, asks how I’m feeling, and motions to the jar of chocolate chip cookies she made that day and offering me one as big as my face.

I don’t know if it’s the fatigue of preparing for a big event or the small kindness of her friendship in the form of sugar and butter and chocolate, but holding that cookie, I feel the sting of tears.

If it weren’t for the mascara and the thousands of people I was about to stand in front of, I would have curled up in a ball and wept.

II. Pregnant with twins.

It’s 2003 and I’m a few months pregnant with two babies at one time. I believe down in my bones that food will never, ever taste good again. John is out of town on a trip so I drive over to my sister’s house and she and her husband offer to sleep in their boys’ rooms so I can have their bedroom for the night.

Settling beneath her heavy blankets in that warm, familiar room, I half-heartedly watch Entertainment Tonight like you do. My life exists these days in the pregnant Twilight Zone of simultaneous starvation and food-aversion. My sister comes quietly into the room and places a small plate on the bed beside me.

On that plate is a grilled cheese sandwich, white bread cut diagonal down the center.

It was a magical and delicious combination. I’ve never forgotten.

III. Busy work season.

It’s months after John quit his job and we’ve decided to see what it’s like for me to work and him to stay home.

A series of yeses to six weeks of speaking engagements when A Million Little Ways releases has me traveling from Tampa to Houston to Indianapolis and a few places in between.

Though the trips all fit in my schedule, I’m surprised by the pressure rising up in my soul.

And so one Sunday when I’m home, I make soup. I put on music, chop carrots and celery and garlic. I warm bread and add heavy dollops of butter on top. Through the open window, I hear the kids play in the driveway while I work.

The sound of their laughter mingles with the wind blowing through the colored leaves in the yard and I’m surprised by the moment that feels both sacred and ordinary all at once.

Soup means I’m home, I’m here, I’m present.

The act of making soup becomes a spiritual act of worship.

IV. The 20 hour silent retreat.

There isn’t time for a weekend away. There isn’t even time for a full 24 hours.

But I feel the need for retreat so strongly that I pack up my car and drive an hour to the retreat center run by the Sisters of Mercy, taking refuge in a simple room with two twin beds and enough silence to fill a stadium.

I’m nervous about eating with strangers as we always have to do at retreat centers.

But sitting around the table and talking about the weather is strangely calming tonight.

For dinner, they serve Mexican food and kale salad.

I leave the table without having to clear one dish. I walk back to my room with a smile.

V. Dinner at home.

Our daughter has a band concert tonight and my mother-in-law is coming with us. We invite her to dinner beforehand, Edie’s perfect beef stew recipe with carrots and sweet potatoes and perfection.

Thirty minutes before dinner, I realize I forgot to pick up bread at the store. Oh well, I think, the soup is good on it’s own.

It would be better with bread.

Not five minutes later, the doorbell rings. A box sits on our doorstep from a publisher, one of the nearly daily deliveries I get from friends and colleagues releasing their books into the world.

I open the box and see Ann Voskamp’s newest release, The Broken Way. I smile, pick it up and whisper a prayer for her.

The book is beautiful.

And then I look in the box and have to blink twice to believe it.

There, tied up in a simple plastic bag, is a loaf of bread.

Just in time for dinner.

***

Not one of these was fancy food requiring a long dinner or the gift of hospitality.

A chocolate chip cookie.

A grilled cheese sandwich.

Soup in my kitchen.

Mexican food with strangers.

A loaf of bread in a box.

But isn’t it all a miracle, that a weary, thirsty, exhausted body can be restored in the span of time between bites? Our simple offerings go further than we might think.

The healing gospel of Jesus shows up in simple ways we might never think to expect.

How has the offering of food been an extension of the gospel to you? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

I still remember the sick feeling I had the day I found out Edie’s house burned to the ground. It was 2010, only days before Christmas.

Edie was one of those twenty-first century gifts, the kind we get now that we write online and can meet people from all over who we would never get to meet otherwise. I had read her blog for years, learning from her gift of hospitality and saving her recipe posts to go back to. I especially loved reading about her kitchen re-model.

The night her house burned down, their family (miraculously) got out safely. But the house was a total loss. That afternoon I walked around my own house taking stock of all my pretty things, wondering what it would be like to lose them and the memories they represented.

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I spent an unreasonable amount of time that day scrolling through her blog, looking at all of her photos of her beautiful home. That sink is gone. That sofa is gone. Those books are gone.

I wondered what else was lost in that fire that cold December night, things that go beyond what our eyes can see and the insurance man can tally up.

I was trying to connect her experience with my reality. I was trying to conceptualize her loss but kept coming up short. Because the truth was, I couldn’t imagine what she was going through.

For the days and weeks after that fire, I prayed specifically that the Lord would wrap Edie and her family up with arms of peace and redemption. I prayed for Fear to run wimpy and small to the hills and for Joy pick up her bright pink skirts and twirl around in their midst.

As it turns out, the fire that night was not the first time Edie’s life had been touched by fire or by tragedy. I no longer wonder what else was lost to her that night, what other losses she was grieving. Because now I know.

“Maybe it was because Mamaw had the barest refrigerator I have ever seen. Or maybe it was because hunger is easier to give voice to than pain. Either way, I was aware that somewhere deep down, I was empty.”

As I read the details of Edie’s life growing up in southern Appalachia, I hung on every loss, every redemption, every connection, and every regret.

She tells her story from her five-year-old perspective all the way up to adulthood. And the whole way through, her words prove that line about how children are great recorders of information but terrible interpreters.

“I could tell by how far away he was that he had one thing on his mind. And it wasn’t me or Sister or my stitches or anything else but finding beer. I was old enough to know the signs and old enough to feel the sting, but I wasn’t yet old enough to know that it wasn’t my fault and there would never be anything I could do to make it right.”

Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. I read in the carpool line, on the airplane, at my kitchen island while the dinner cooked. I stayed up too late and woke up too early just to read this book.

Reading the details of her story, I was transported into her life. And in seeing her life, somehow I saw my own.

I saw everyone from my children and my aunts to my sister and my mom. And though he’s been sober now for over 30 years, I recognized small glimpses of my own dad from years ago in Edie’s alcoholic Daddy. I understood her deep love and affection towards him as well as her misplaced responsibility for him.

Most of all, I saw myself.

“I doubted Daddy would ever really change, and I wondered what that would mean for Sister and me and everybody else who loved him. Maybe the worst part about growing up was being forced to see things like they really were.”

And then when I finished the book, I cried because it was over. The heartbreak of Edie’s story is deep, but the hope is deeper still. Her vulnerability and resilience have reconnected me to my own.

I am deeply grateful to Edie for sharing her story with us. This book is one of my favorite books of the year and I hope you’ll add it to your list to read.

I’m honored to share this sponsored post in glad partnership with Tyndale House.

Edie Wadsworth is an old soul. Born and raised in East Tennessee, she has southern Appalachia in her blood. She would say her difficult upbringing has been one of the greatest gifts of her life and she believes with all her heart that everything that happens to us, once redeemed by God, will be the magic—the source and inspiration for our greatest gifts to humanity.

My clogs and I have walked some foreign roads this summer. I’m still a little jet-lagged from my latest trip – a little weary and teary, a little wondering how to carry all the new experiences, new friendships, and difficult realizations with me into my everyday life.

I wrote about our time in Italy shortly after we returned and now, a few days after coming home from Israel, I’m realizing this trip will take more like a lifetime to unpack.

I’ve imagined the Middle East one way my whole life. Since reading the Bible in Sunday School, I’ve imagined Israel and Jerusalem and Galilee in one dusty, brown way. The media has added words like terror, conflict, and bombs to that image in my mind.

Now all of that has changed. Because this is not how I pictured Jerusalem.

This is not how I pictured Jerusalem, but maybe I should have. Because of this.

“’I’ve come back to Zion,I’ve moved back to Jerusalem.Jerusalem’s new names will be Truth City,and Mountain of God-of-the-Angel-Armies,and Mount Holiness.’

Old men and old women will come back to Jerusalem, sit on benches on the streets and spin tales, move around safely with their canes—a good city to grow old in. And boys and girls will fill the public parks, laughing and playing—a good city to grow up in.”

Zechariah 8:3-5

I wrote a whole book about small-moment living in a fast-moving world, much of it inspired by that image in those words from Zechariah. The dream for rebuilding Jerusalem was not that it would be great and powerful, but that old men and old women would sit on benches in the streets and spin tales, that boys and girls would laugh and play.

We saw a lot of that playful tale spinning in Jerusalem. It was beautiful and felt like the center of the whole world. Walking through her streets was like seeing the future in living color, the fulfillment of a hopeful vision and a promise.

But we all know this colorful joy is not the whole story or anywhere near the complete reality. For example, this photo below has haunted me all week.

I didn’t post this one while I was in Israel because, quite frankly, I didn’t want my Mom to worry. But just over the rosemary, past the hazy hills in the distance is Syria. From where we stood on the border, we could hear the bombs drop as clearly as the rustling leaves and singing birds in the trees around us.

Our guide for that day was a major in the IDF reserves and a political and military analyst specializing in the Middle East conflict. He assured us after our trip we won’t understand the conflict any better than before we came, but at least now we will misunderstand at a higher level. I’m finding that to be true.

This image on the border between Israel and Syria captures the contrast between the stunning landscape, culture, and history of this part of the world as well as the complicated conflict between her people and surrounding governments.

It’s more difficult to live with the knowledge than I imagined it would be. But this is what I know: God loves the people on both sides of those hills.

The on-going conflict in the Middle East is multi-layered and nuanced and I don’t pretend to understand everything happening in that part of the world. At least now I misunderstand at a higher level.

But I guess I felt compelled to share these images with you while I’m still holding the silky edges of memory before they slip away, glimpses of this beautiful place that you probably won’t see on the news.

You already know a lot of the sorrow of this land. I felt compelled to share a bit of the joy.

Grateful to my new friends at Israel Collective for the opportunity to see, to listen, and to carry the continuing story of God’s love for his people – all of his people – in my heart.

When I read this post by my new friend, Shawn Smucker, I cried. Not just oh my eyes blurred a little but full out, shaking shoulders, giant tears. Part of my life’s work is to teach people to pay attention to what makes them cry, because tears are tiny messengers sent from the deepest part of who we are. Trace them back and there you’ll find your deepest desires.

When we are aware of our deepest desire, we are one step closer to becoming more fully ourselves.

I’m grateful to Shawn for writing these words, for sharing them with our community here, and for giving me reason to reflect on those deep desires coming alive within me. I hope these words do the same for you.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.

There are many wonderful spiritual disciplines. Silence. Meditation. Study. Celebration. Prayer. They are practices that will change us on a fundamental level, activities that tune us in to the direction of the Spirit.

And then there is what I like to call The Spiritual Discipline of Looking for Sammy’s Blanket in the Middle of the Night.

Because no matter how many times you remind a child to leave their blanket in their bed, and no matter how often during the day you direct them to return the blanket to the bed, once night falls, and the shadows gather around the house, the blanket is nowhere to be found.

When you are nearly asleep, and just as the cares of the world are melting away into a sleepy haze, this child will come to your room with a quivering lip and watery eyes and tell you that he was almost asleep when he realized Moe is not in the bed (Moe is the name of the blanket).

And, even though it’s the last thing on Earth you feel like doing, you will slowly walk the house with them, searching each and every room, glancing under tables and behind sofas, double- and triple-checking the laundry. You will wake other children to see if they know Moe’s whereabouts.

And most nights you will find it. But some nights you won’t.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

For three months I’ve been waiting for something. You probably know what it’s like. You’ve waited, too, for many crucial (and not so crucial) things: a final diagnosis, an offer, a closing date, a yes or no, a call back, word on that promotion or potential adoption. Waiting to become pregnant. Waiting for your children to grow up. Waiting for retirement.

Waiting.

I’m nearly forty now, neither young nor old, but I know this: I could spend my whole life obsessing over THAT THING I’m currently waiting for. Because the waiting? The searching? The wondering?

It never ends. There’s always something OUT THERE. There’s always something just beyond my grasp. Maybe this is what it means to be alive: longing. There’s always something I’m looking for, and sometimes I find it. But often I don’t.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

While we usually obsess over the thing we’re waiting for, the thing we want, what the waiting can do for us, can do in us, is never about that thing. I know, I know. I’m not making sense.

How about this:

While my son and I comb the house for his blanket, what’s happening in us during those late-night searches has nothing to do with the blanket. He is learning that I love him enough to go with him into the dark places. He is learning that I will leave my comfort in order to help him find his. He is learning, hopefully, that the best place to leave his blanket during the day is in his bed. He is learning, in his own childlike way, to “accept the anxiety of feeling himself in suspense and incomplete.”

While I continue to wait for this thing that may or may not happen, what’s happening in me has nothing to do with the end result. There is “a new spirit gradually forming within” me, especially if I can believe that I am not wandering this dark house alone.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

A few days after Prince died, I read an article on Entertainment Weekly about actor Will Smith’s reaction to the news. “I am stunned and heartbroken. I just spoke with him last night.”

When I was in college, one of my high school girlfriends died in a car accident. I remember exactly where I was when I got the phone call (on my parents’ deck in the sun) and exactly what I was reading (Max Lucado’s No Wonder They Call Him the Savior).

My friend Summer was on the other line and I could tell from her voice the news was terrible. Just say it, I heard myself spit out over the line, just say the words.

It was late June 1998. I was 21 and Brandy was 20.

It was heartbreaking and heavy and the worst kind of sad. But the part that made it impossible to believe was we had just seen her a few weeks before. It was on her wedding day and our high school group of friends served at the wedding – passing out programs or something, I can’t remember.

But we had just gathered. We had just celebrated and laughed and shared memories and stared at each other in disbelief because could it be possible we were old enough to get married now?!

It would have been a different kind of hard if it had been years since I’d seen Brandy. As it was, we gathered in the church to grieve her loss only weeks after we had gathered in the same place to celebrate her marriage.

Today at age 38, sometimes I still can’t believe she isn’t here.

The first thing we try to piece together when someone dies is the last interaction we had with him, the last time we saw her face, the last words we exchanged. It seems the more recently you’ve seen a person alive, the more difficult it is to believe they are gone.

And the first thing we often say is, but I just saw her. Will Smith’s response rings so familiar. But I just spoke with him last night.

It’s like our brain is trying to reason with reality. This person can’t be gone because they were just talking to me yesterday.

We aren’t accustomed to not being able to trust our eyes and our ears. And our eyes and ears say they were just right there.

If you have lost someone close to you, especially if you’ve seen them recently, I don’t have any good words to share, really.

The only thing I can offer is my own experience and the knowing of Christ even in the midst of the unknowing of anything else.

And if you know someone who is experiencing loss, have patience. They are learning how to navigate a world where their senses can’t always be trusted, where a fast-fading memory is all they have left.

May Christ comfort you who are standing in the gap of the before and after. As you slowly begin to convince your senses of how things are now, may you discover a new way of seeing that perhaps you didn’t expect.

May this inability to trust your senses lead to a new understanding of the kingdom of God – that seeing isn’t the only reality and love isn’t limited to earth.